1. Do you need support for Assetto Corsa Competizione? Please use the proper forum below and ALWAYS zip and attach the WHOLE "Logs" folder in your c:\users\*youruser*\AppData\Local\AC2\Saved. The "AppData" folder is hidden by default, check "Hidden items" in your Windows view properties. If you report a crash, ALWAYS zip and attach the WHOLE "Crashes" folder in the same directory. Do not post "I have the same issue" in an existing thread with a game crash, always open your own thread. Do not PM developers and staff members for personal troubleshooting and support.
  2. As part of our continuous maintenance and improvements to Assetto Corsa Competizione we will be releasing small updates on a regular basis during the esports season which might not go through the usual announcement process detailing the changes until a later version update where these changes will be listed retrospectively.
  3. If ACC doesn't start with an error or the executable is missing, please add your entire Steam directory to the exceptions in your antivirus software, run a Steam integrity check or reinstall the game altogether. Make sure you add the User/Documents/Assetto Corsa Competizione folder to your antivirus/Defender exceptions and exclude it from any file sharing app (GDrive, OneDrive or Dropbox)! The Corsair iCue software is also known to conflict with Input Device initialization, if the game does not start up and you have such devices, please try disabling the iCue software and try again. [file:unknown] [line: 95] secure crt: invalid error is a sign of antivirus interference, while [Pak chunk signing mismatch on chunk] indicates a corrupted installation that requires game file verification.
  4. When reporting an issue with saved games, please always zip and attach your entire User/Documents/Assetto Corsa Competizione/Savegame folder, along with the logs and the crash folder (when reporting related to a crash).

PHYSICS Race weekend tyre sets management, pitstop strategy and fuel load testing

Discussion in 'ACC Blog' started by Aristotelis, Jun 3, 2019.

  1. Aristotelis

    Aristotelis Will it drift? Staff Member KS Dev Team

    Blancpain GT3 endurance races have obligatory stints limited to 65 minutes per driver at maximum. Drivers have to do a pitstop and swap with another driver while the mechanics refuel the car and change tyres. By nature, ACC simulates this aspect of the rules, and it indeed pays to have the correct strategy already predetermined in order to lose the minimum possible time during a pitstop and find the car with the correct fuel load and optimum tyre pressures. To do so, the setup screen “Fuel & Strategy” now has a dedicated “PitStop Strategy” box.
    pitstop_strategy1.jpg


    You can select different fuel loads, tyre sets, tyre compounds and tyre pressures for each of the 4 tyres, for every single pitstop you intend to perform during your race. For example, you can select 100 litres of fuel, tyre set 2, and various pressures to put on your 1st pitstop. So the first time you go to the pit, the mechanics will perform those changes to your car, automatically. You can select a different amount of fuel load for your 2nd pitstop, and so on for every single pitstop.
    pitstop_strategy2.jpg


    In your MFD (Multi Functional Display) in the pitstop page, you will find the pistop strategy slider that will permit you to change between the various pitstop presets you have created, and you will be also able to review the values and change them on the fly, if needed.
    MFD.jpg


    Speaking of race strategy, new in the setup aero page is the “Fuel Load Test” slider that permits you to test your car with different fuel loads without the automatic system re-adjusting your ride heights and alignments. For example, you can set your car with full fuel load for a long stint.
    full_race_fuel.jpg


    After you’re happy with the car handling, you can go to the aero page and set a low fuel load at the Fuel Load Test slider.
    fuel_load_test.jpg


    The automatic setup adjustments will stop and the ride heights and alignments will not auto-adjust. So you can hit drive and drive your car lighter and higher and see how it reacts at the end of a long stint. Of course you can also do the opposite. When you touch the ride heights, the fuel load test automatically disables again.

    NOTE: The system is only available during free practice sessions. It is disabled during qualifying and race sessions so that the user won’t exploit it to make the car lower than the ride height that rules dictate at session start.
    fuel_load_test_disabled.jpg


    Speaking of race weekends, one of the most important aspects of the Blancpain GT3 sprint and endurance series is the limitation of tyre sets. According to the rules, teams have a predefined number of tyres sets for the entire race weekend, which includes free practice sessions, qualifying sessions and race(s). The teams have to cycle through all the tyre sets, obviously trying to use them as efficiently as possible. The number of available tyre sets is different in sprint races, 3-hour endurance races, 6-hour endurance races and the 24 hours of Spa.

    Assetto Corsa Competizione simulates this rule effectively. The feature is available in version 1.0 for single player gameplay and will be implemented for multiplayer races soon.
    ACC assigns the following number of tyre sets for each different race type:
    • Sprint race weekend: 5 sets
    • 3-hour Endurance race weekend: 6 sets
    • 6-hour Endurance race weekend: 9 sets
    • 24-hour Endurance race weekend: no limit.
    • There is also no limit for wet tyre sets.
    tyreset.jpg


    Let’s take for example a sprint race weekend. It consists of:
    2 practice sessions each with 60 minutes duration.
    2 qualifying sessions, each with a 15 minutes duration.
    2 races, each with a duration of 1 hour.

    As mentioned above, during the whole sprint weekend you only get 5 sets of brand new tyres to work with. It makes sense to use one tyre set for both practice sessions to finetune the setup for tyre wear and overall handling. Then, it is recommended to switch to a fresh tyre set for each qualifying session, which leaves you with 2 more fresh tyre sets for each of the 1-hour races. It might sound easy and reasonable, but you need to pay attention to your setup screen and not overdrive, spin out, flatspot or badly wear more tyres sets than that in each session.


    NOTE: The software will automatically assign a new or the freshest tyre set every time to go back to the pits/setup to protect inexperienced drivers from having to deal with badly worn tyre sets. If you stop during a session to tweak your setup, you have to make sure to manually select a used tyre set if you want to keep fresh tyres for qualifying and race.
    The strategy setup page has specific options for the selection of the desired tyre set, as well as a readout showing the level of wear, graining, blistering and flatspot for the selected set.
    • Wear is displayed as tread depth in millimetres. Pirelli advices to swap tyres when the depth is at 1.5mm or lower. You can see the depth for Inner Mid and Outside part of the footprint of the tyre, which will also help to understand if your camber settings are correct for a long race. Pirelli tyres give massive grip in the first 2,3 laps (at correct temperature and pressure). After that they have a fast drop that stabilizes for the a long period. It's common for the drivers to do their fast laps at the start of the second half of their stint, around 30,40 minutes after the pitstop. Even though the tyres are worn, the lighter fuel load, permits the car to do fast laptimes. After that there's another drop in performance but nothing to worry-some. With a good driving style and higher TC and ABS levels, a tyre set can be used for 2 stints, but it takes skill and effort. A worn out tyre will have less grip obviously but because of the less tyre tread, will have less flex and generate less heat. You can expect almost 1psi pressure difference from the start of the stint to the end of it.
    • Grain is displayed as "light", "moderate", "significant" and "severe". It will happen if you side your tyres when they are cold. Graining can alo go away if you drive smoothly and keep your tyres at their optimum temperature. Graining will make your tyres less precise and lose some load sensitivity and grip from the tyres.
    • Blister is displayed as "light", "moderate", "significant" and "severe". Blistering is the appearance of air bubbles in the core of the tyre, caused by overheating. The tyre practically boils in the inside, creating bubble that provoke vibrations and less grip when severe. Blistering is a permanent damage that can't be repaired.
    • Flat Spots is displayed as "light", "moderate", "significant" and "severe". Flat spotting is created when the tyre slides without rotating, effectively creating a flat spot on the footprint. Racing slicks and wet tyres are extremely soft and flat spotting is very easy to provoke and has very severe effects. A flatspotted tyre will tend to lock again on the same spot and will create massive vibrations when underload (turning, braking...). Flat spot doesn't occur only while locking tyres when braking, which GT3 cars usually avoid as they have ABS. It can occur during a spin, especially if the driver brakes hard to avoid impact. There is a reason real drivers try to avoid braking when spinning even if for the spectators seems the only way to avoid a crash. ACC properly simulates such situations and can take no more than 2 or 3 spins at high speed and braking (i.e. at the end of the long straight of Paul Ricard or at the top of Eau Rouge at Spa), to practically flat spot so bad the tyres that they will blow up. We advice to try to not brake while spinning, except if absolutely necessary.


    In the pitstop strategy you can now also select the tyre set to install to during each pitstop specified. During the races, the MFD (Multi Functional Display) will show you tyre sets available to choose. It will eliminate from the list tyre sets that might have severe flatspots. If all tyre sets are in a bad shape, then it will show again all tyre sets in order from less-used/flatspotted to worse.
    MFD_tyresets.jpg


    All in all, this is Assetto Corsa Competizione PitStop strategy, fuel load test and limited tyre set feature. We are certain it will give a whole new depth in the racing experience and a great step forward in the simulation of endurance racing against versus the traditional “hotlapping” races.
     

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  3. Mitja Bonca

    Mitja Bonca Alien

    @Aristotelis , why is there "fuel to add" a min value of 2? Why not 0?
     
  4. Aristotelis

    Aristotelis Will it drift? Staff Member KS Dev Team

    there is a minimum fuel to be have in the car fuel tanks. If you put 2L in the strategy page, it will NOT put fuel on your car in a pitstop.
    It is a bit confusing, we will make it more clear, but right now we are focused on the crashes and more important stuff.
     
    JackSorensen, Nox, tw1st and 9 others like this.
  5. Mitja Bonca

    Mitja Bonca Alien

    Just one more thing, I will ask right here, yesterday eve, I did my 1st 1h long race (CP server) and I did my best lap in a penultimate lap. So no tire degredation what so ever, although numbers of tire wear came from 3.0 down to 1.7-1.8 if I recall. Is this OK? Not so familiar with tire degredation IRL, I know tires can last, but still... Thx for your great support.
     
  6. LeDude83

    LeDude83 Alien

    Great stuff, Aris. 2 Questions:

    1) So in the MFD, "pit strategy" represents "N° Pitstop" in the setup screen?
    2) Will the changes to the strategy made in the MFD be transferred into the setup screen?
     
    Coanda likes this.
  7. plaid

    plaid Alien

    These posts and Things like a key List and setting The view would be good for a manual. Being a quite complex Game that could help beginners and in general - and instead of answering questions people can Point to it.

    Thats sadly true for the offline part. I tried endurance in pcars2 where its The Same problem, The races unfortunitly end whenever The leaders reach The backend cause you automaticly win, also failures with pitting can take you suddenly from The 13th pos to the 1st, dunno about that in acc.
    That and The Hardware requirements (temporary) made me scratch acc from my to buy list.
    It being a Common Problem makes me rather Pessimistic. Could Be simply too difficult.
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2019
    bluwaters and Racert46 like this.
  8. Oblit0r

    Oblit0r Alien

    Thanks for this info!

    Would it be possible to let people choose names for their pit strategies? It's possible to set up a couple of dozen pit strategies, too many to remember exactly which one is which.
     
    Claponi likes this.
  9. icemanzp

    icemanzp Simracer

    Is this tyre feature working well in multiplayer? I mean, what if the driver will re-join session? Will he get all new sets, or server keeps this info?
     
  10. plaid

    plaid Alien

  11. Aristotelis

    Aristotelis Will it drift? Staff Member KS Dev Team

    There's a definitive performance loss when the tyre is worn. But... that doesn't mean that the actual car performance is lower. The lighter fuel load and the changes in setup ride height and alignments, the change in road grip and temperatures, all can influence the total performance.
    Here are a couple of car stints at Silverstone from 2018 race.
    You can see how both cars made their best race laptimes at the end of their stints
    Screenshot 2019-06-03 10.19.57.jpg Screenshot 2019-06-03 10.19.34.jpg

    1. yes.
    2. no.
    :)


    The tyre set managment is not yet enabled in multiplayer. We are working on it, right after we fix the big crash issues (terribly sorry, I assure everybody we are working nonstop on this, thanks for your patience and support).
     
  12. Atak_Kat

    Atak_Kat Simracer

    One comment, not to nit-pick, just to give a user-feedback.
    I like that there is an 'estimated fuel per lap'. Understand that this can certainly vary.
    But it seems to me that a 'estimated fuel per minute' would be far more helpful. Or, perhaps 'estimated fuel per 10 minutes'?
    - I have never seen an online session that is 'laps' defined. Only minutes.
    - Also the special events, seem to be time defined.

    Would be far more helpful, in my opinion.
     
  13. pales.

    pales. Racer

    Arguably artificial intelligence is INCREDIBLY complex and difficult to develop, but if you're designing a game that literally revolves around driver swaps and racing, you have to design something that provides somewhat of a challenge. To release ACC as a single player game (with career mode) and not have AI capable of even overtaking is just ridiculous. Why do you think developers are not responding to these concerns, it's about damage control, and it is unlikely you will see the ai characteristics change.

    I wish I could get my money back..
     
  14. chksix

    chksix Hardcore Simmer

    AI issues are OT in this thread.
     
    MarkGB75, Son, jaxx_za and 2 others like this.
  15. admix

    admix Gamer

    I was going to write exactly the same thing! I also think it would be useful, and would go hand in hand with the philosophy of setup that avoids overthinking/doublethinking, in this case calculate the consumption per minute based on consumption per lap taking into account the lap time :confused:
     
    Atak_Kat likes this.
  16. plaid

    plaid Alien

    The post adresses offline endurance races, which the AI can't handle. Its a dealbreaker for many people how bought it or want to buy it for the singleplayer. Mentioning it should be more than fine.

    Well I don't think Kunos or SMS didn't try or are happy with it, but maybe it reaches a point where its not possible or takes far too much work. I no longer expect to enjoy endurances races, as long as I don't want to do them online.
    But I agree that you shouldn't advertise offline endurance races or put them in the singleplayer if they dont work well and a response would be nice.
     
  17. Aristotelis

    Aristotelis Will it drift? Staff Member KS Dev Team

    As usual, we never stop trying to improve ACC. We are hard at work to fix the crashes as soon as possible. After that we are going to improve everything we can.
    I cannot tell you much in terms of AI as my work consists of making going at an acceptable pace, but what you discuss is more in the core of the code. I suggest you open specific threads in the specific subforum.
     
    Freddie Seng, Son, Adastros and 3 others like this.
  18. Coanda

    Coanda Alien

  19. Radfahrer

    Radfahrer Hardcore Simmer

    Thanks for the information, Aristotelis, neat stuff there .

    P.s.:+1 for the chill handling of us forum-animals, please don´t hate us too much ;)
     
  20. PiretSS2000

    PiretSS2000 Racer

    Ot?
     
  21. Offtopic.
     
    D.Jankovic likes this.

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